Eclipse
by Sky Samuelle
Summary: A twist on Reckoking brings epic changes in Smallville: Lex falls from grace and Lana is along for the ride. LL Story, so if you don't like the pairing, don't bash.
1. Chapter 1

**ECLIPSE**

_Author: Sky Samuelle  
Rating: PG for now  
Category: Angst, romance,  
Pairing: LexLana  
Summary: A different twist on Recknocking  
Spoilers: vaguely, for reckocking and lexmas  
Disclaimer: No infringement is intended, no profit is made._

**1**

Lex Luthor is never drunk- usually he never allows himself that weakness, even if he's the only testimony of it . Even if he wouldn't feel repulsed by the loss of control, the voice of his father would never fail to remark the difference between a shameful addiction and a tasteful appreciation.

It kills him to admit this, but Lex is like every other son, after all- Lionel has given him nothing but remorseless betrayal and disappointment, yet he can't stop seeking his approval.

It won't never come, but warring with Nature is a waste of time Lex won't indulge.  
Not when it's such much more productive twisting filial instinct into competition.

When his father has came to him after the Clark's accident with silver kryptonite and told him that Lana Lang will never love him because of the darkness deeply rooted inside him, it has taken a lot of restraint to not demand if it was really Lex Lionel hated, or a fallacious reflection of himself.

All his life, Lex has known that for his father he's nothing but natural fruition of his teachings, and therefore a worthy object of recriminations rather than praises . Every success he has obtained was because of Lionel's accurate training and every failure which has ever hindered him derived from his incapacity to follow it correctly .

More than anything, Lex wants distance himself from his father, to prove him wrong.

Even today, of course, Lex has lost. Lionel is probably laughing and drinking to his failure.

Lex Luthor has tried his hardest and lost to a farmer: a potential triumph has turned out the bitterest spot on the family tree.

Big Bad Luthor won't be a senator, and if all of Smallville can celebrate, there's not a single reason Lex can't .

So today he drinks until he's drunk, surrounded by the decadent luxury of Luthor Mansion, which feels more oppressive after every glass he empties.

His face feels hot and he is certain he should stop, yet Lex is still pouring himself a drink when Lana enters.

"Are you okay? You sounded pretty upset in your message. "

Her soft, concerned tone touches him and he's suddenly ashamed that Lana has to see him in this state.

"Probably shouldn't have called. Shouldn't do a lot of things but I uh, seem to do them anyway. "

Like wanting her there when she obviously means to enjoy the Jonathan's victory along with Clark.

Because in this lifetime she is with Clark, not him. In this world she loves Clark, not Lex, in spite of any tempting, treacherous dream or vision Lex can have had about happy Christmases and happiest families.

He must raise his glass to the irony : " I'm sure you wanna get back to the party, so... "

"Lex."

Lana 's voice is still soft and still it brings him to shame as she walks towards him:  
" I know how hard you worked for this, but, I don't think you should take it so personally. "

" You know how many people are cheering right now that the uh, spoiled rich kid lost to some salt of the earth farmer?"

" Well, since when do you care about what other people think? "

"Since I was branded at birth with the sins of my father- he argues, but she still doesn't understand and he feels his speech to become more excited - Just once, Lana. I wanted to get out from under his shadow, you know? Earn something on my own? Well, consider yourself lucky you never had a father to endure, huh?

Lex doesn't want her pity. Pity is for the weak and he will never be that. He holds on Scotch, hoping he won't actually remember any of this humiliating charade tomorrow morning, if he drinks enough.

" Umm. I think it's best if we talk about this when you're not drunk."

Lana is walking away and towards the door, but Lex is not surprised. All what he touches eventually turns acid and foul-tasting.

"See, now I've hurt your feelings. Perfect! Through this whole campaign I've managed to alienate everyone I care about. I can't lose you too. "

Another drink, and he almost misses it when Lana walks back over to him :  
"Lex. Hey. "

She puts her hand on his shoulder, and says exactly what he didn't know he longed to hear " You weren't going to lose me."

He could swear there will be an imprint of her palm on his skin tomorrow, because he feels the warmth of her flesh on his spreading through all his body and when he smiles, putting her hand on hers, he knows it reaches his eyes.

Until Lex notices the ring on her finger and everything freezes from inside out once again.

"Oh. Well, I guess it's a bigger day than I thought."

Lana is completely deaf to the bitterness of his comment. She looks excited like a little girl who has not just shattered what was left of his projects- not dreams, because no Luthor has those, never . In her eyes it shines a light he longs to crush.

" Yeah, yeah it happened so fast we never really got a chance to tell anyone about it."

She is going to getting married to someone else, and he can't quite believe it's meant to end like this.

"Yeah. So after all the lies he told you, you still chose him, hmm?"

"You don't understand… "

The room grows from chilly to intolerably hot in the space of seconds. Lex is so angry he can barely breath :

"How many times have you come to me, wondering what Clark's keeping from you? Why he, uh, disappeared to Metropolis for months? How he rose from the dead?"

"It's not like that now."

One suspicion dawns over him, and it feels like the proverbial sword buried in his back.

"Really? Come on, Lana. I know you. You'd never say yes with all the doubts you have! Whatever it is he's been covering up all this time -he takes hold of her chin and whispers, leaning in close to her : -You know, don't you?"

She shakes off his most tender feelings with the same resolution she removes his hand from her beautiful, lying face.

"Clark isn't hiding anything, Lex. "

Lex knows the truth: Clark won't never trust him – exactly like he never did in past- and Lana is no different. Lana is not different. To think he would change himself for her…

"After everything I've done for you. How could you lie to me?"

In his fury, he turns and throws his glass swiftly into the fire, aware he is just too close to throw it in her face.

Lana jumps and Lex finds himself far from placated- he grabs her upper arms and pushes her back against the bar.

The fear so transparent on her features angers him further : she has no right to make him feel remorse, after her lies.

He shouts to her like he could silence the voices screaming inside his head simply by covering them: they say he is a fool for hoping and believing and putting her on her pedestal. At last, she chose Clark and all what she has reserved for him are lies.

"Tell me!"

Lana grabs a glass from the bar… but before she can throwing it in his face, a sharp pain seizes Lex, forcing him to bring his hands to his heart.

Darkness envelopes him so suddenly he can do nothing but collapsing on the floor.  
Lex passes out under her eyes and Lana cannot move: she's terrified it is a feint of some kind and looking down on his unmoving body, she is expecting to see him to jump up to grab her again.

But it doesn't happen- Lex is just there, so still than he could be even dead. Which is probably impossible by each medical rule existing because heart failures are not …. Like this.

In her hand, the glass is trembling because she is.

Lana breaths in and tries to think, to put the Lex' s rage and the pressure of his crawls on her arms out of her mind.

She approaches his fallen form hesitantly, kneeling beside him but Lana can't bring herself to touch him until she sees how slack his features has became: on his face, she cannot find no trace of the previous anger, nor the grimace of pain she has glimpsed few seconds before he fell.

"Lex?"

He doesn't answer, even while she shakes him clumsily and his name keeps coming out her lips in rasps.

Lana 's last thought before security guards barge in from nowhere and take her from him, is that Clark should be here.

--

A peripheral fragment of the Lex's conscious is aware that he was angry and disquieted, but right now it is difficult to remember the reason . All what he knows is how he can feel the waves. They create a soothing lullaby which surround him, and to which he can't resist, even while they hold him down and he perceives clearly how wildly they thrash his body around.

Yes, all what he cares about is their sound- it reminds him of one morning his mother had taken him on the seashore.

With Julian. They had sat on the sable and played with seashells.

The memory is so untainted and clean than Lex is not entirely sure he is not confusing it with a fantasy.

The waves subside and it's like if he is breaking the surface and grasping… except there's no water around him.

There only a sparkling, endless light.

And a child, waving playfully from distance.

Lex thinks about the son he has never had- the one from his vision- and he's about calling the Alex's name, but what actually comes past his lips is : "Julian !"

The child laughs and Lex doesn't run to reach him, but soon they are face to face and Lex can look down on his brother : the features on the small jovial face blur as he strive to recognize them through the faint glow emanating from them .

"Hey!"  
"Hi"  
Lex sits, noticing Julian is tracing something on the sand.  
"Lex, guess what this is !"

The design is hardly elaborate : just two asterisks separated from large space, like if they are meant to be on opposite sides.

Julian is too eager to explain them himself to wait the Lex' s answer:

" They are called Binary Stars "

The hint of childlike smugness of his voice amuses the older Luthor.

"Binary Stars? "

"Don't you see? They are both made of shadows and light, but meant to shine on opposite fields of the Sky. One can't be Light if the Other isn't Dark. This is how the balance works… no Night without Day or Spring without Autumn. "

"I don't understand"

Julian pouts, like if Lex is being stubborn on purpose. Perhaps he's right.

The small boy puffs and points to the right star: " This is Clark Kent - then he points to the left star- this is you "  
"Why? "

Julian shrugs, like if it doesn't matter

"Gravity. Or something. But they exchange places cyclically, you know. Neither is evil "  
Lex shakes his head in refusal of this logic - he likes to consider himself the mater of his fate.

Julian doesn't mind him. " Father is lying, you know"

"No novelty here… Regarding what?"

"He believes that if one knows everything, controls everything nothing can hurt him. But it's a lie "

Lex mulls over that, but he doesn't really knows what to do with it. Still, the phrase is an accurate synopsis of his and Lionel's way of living.

"The more I try to keep things together, the more they fall apart. Since I came to Smallville. I wish…"

"Let they fall apart. What do you care about? You are what you are- We love you the same. We still miss you"

Lex blinks as speech deserts him. Lillian and Julian are dead, he remembers. This is just a dream, and if he eventually wakes up, they will not be at his side.

They are been dead for years and until this moment the notion has never occurred to him.

"Idem"

Lex wakes up with the Julian's grinning, glowing face fresh on his mind. His return to consciousness is slow, gradual.

When he works up the will to open his eyes the first thing he recognizes is the expensive sterility of a private clinic . White walls close on him and he's not surprised to find himself alone. On his bedside, there's not one single get-well card, but a more useful calendar: he learns he's been out for nine days.

Breathing in, he can recall distinctly his dream, the strange warmth of it.

He had forgot how it felt to be loved.

Perhaps so far, he has wanted to forget it, along with his mother's Chanel N5 scent and his brother' s existence.

It's insane, but he feels… forgiven. Ready.

He must just figure out for what.


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

Jonathan Kent dies the same day Lex Luthor falls in a coma under the Lana's fearful eyes. She and Clark were in hospital Waiting Room when Chloe had barged tearfully in with the news.

Lana knows Clark blames himself for actually being there with Lex when he should be been there for his father. Until the very last, they had believed the fee of the Jor-Ehl resurrection of his son would be the life of his estranged best friend; to their justification, doctors had not supplied a better explanation for the Lex mysterious, senseless state.

Lana tries to comfort Clark and Martha, but all what she can think about is that Lex has nobody.

Few people will cry his loss if he dies – possibly only she and Clark there in Smallville- and Lionel is not certainly the kind of father which would watch over his comatose son in a hospital room.

It's sad.

Even more so because Lex used to be her most dear friend, before he revealed his secondary interest in her, before she realized how much his fixation with control and power can occasionally obscure his mind until nothing else is left.

She has always known there are two sides to Lex Luthor: the friend, who fights his upbringing and whom she admires more than anybody, and the controlling, manipulative persona he has built piece for piece, with extreme care, over the years in order to survive. Neither is less dangerous than the other.

He's fractured inside and deep down, Lana has never wanted to be the kind of woman which he could feel passion for.

Because he is a man of never sated appetites, who wants and takes simply because he can, without conditions or permissions and even when he gets everything, he wants more.

Yet… there's no denying the understanding between them, the comfort Lana -who feels always so pressured to be useful, so gratified by being necessary- used to find in Lex, who strives incessantly to please nobody but himself.

Lex is her friend and she has hurt him deeply, choosing to marry Clark . To lie him, when they had so recently allied to find the truth.

Seeing the ring on her finger in that specific moment of defeat must be been a slap in the face and in spite of how terrified his display of drunken temper has made her, she feels guilty.

Lex will never forgive her- if he even wakes up from the coma. But that 's an eventuality she can't contemplate. Lana needs to think of Lex as the strong, almost omniscient guidance of her high school years- the one who knew no defeat and held the keys of every mystery. The one who couldn't possibly die like this- suddenly, senselessly, going down in a display of uncontrolled anger she has triggered.

He's Lex Luthor, and he'll do anything he wants when he wants, screwing everybody else: he will wake up from his deep sleep when he's ready, when nobody expects it.

When Lana was younger and more naïve, this capacity of maintaining the upper hand and keeping purposefully on edge the people which gravitated around him fascinated her. Like a child desperate to hide her cooties, she used to test him with sass and banter, but all what she usually obtained it was amusing him.

Today Lana is mature enough to guess what lays hidden behind the Lex' s congenial antics and superficial charm. With him, even marking where his sincerity ends and deception begins has grown extraordinarily difficult . Sometimes Lana is certain Lex is so used to manipulate events than even he confused the reality with the illusion of it he weaved .

Yet … Lex is still able to leave her awestruck and Lana keeps praying this will be one of those times, so she'll have another chance to tell him she loves him, even if it isn't the way he would choose.

Clark surprises her first: they stay up all the night one week after the Event and he cries in her arms. A comforting embrace and affectionate pats on his back turn to something more and they make love clumsily on his makeshift bed . It's uncomfortable but it's loving until she can feel his hands getting heavier, his pressure on her wrists more forceful. She can tell he's too consumed with grief to notice , but it hurts her when he spreads her thighs with his knee .

It's the first time she fully realizes her fiancé it's not human at all, and how easy would be for him damaging her by accident.

Her eyes flutter shut when Clark enters inside her. The Lex' s dark, angry face flashes unwanted before her closed eyelids and the sharp pain peaks into a weird, intense pleasure.

Lana hangs on the image some more- nobody will know if she imagines this… different and even she will have forgot all about it anyway, as soon it's over. It won't be a betrayal because it won't be nothing but a trick for forgetting the pain.

Later, as she and Clark redress hurriedly, he's horrified to find bluish fingerprints forming over the tender skin of her wrists. Lana tries to brush it off with a grin and a joke : "Com on Clark , it's not like if I'm breakable !"

Judging by his crestfallen expression, it isn't as reassuring as she has meant it .

Two days after, they are at the Farm and she knows something is wrong because Clark won't look at her, regardless what she says.

He's so serious than when he starts talking, she already imagines nothing good can come from it

"Lana, we need to talk."

Lana knows those words are trouble, the most feared overture in the boy-girl conversation's history. But she and Clark engaged – they are forever and she's not worried if not for him.

"Lana, I love you, more than anything. You know I do. But this thing between us can't go nowhere right now. Not when my father is dead. I'm not ready to handle it. I think… I know I need a break. I feel so guilty and I know it's not right or fair but I can't build our life together on this. And I can't afford to risk you again, like the other night. Please don't ask it of me. I need to be alone for awhile "

Clark sounds like if he has practiced this speech before a mirror countless times, and Lana pretends hard she is imagining the surety in his voice. She takes his hands and puts on her best supportive-girlfriend-smile, then pretends she's not begging him:

"Clark, this thing is our engagement. I just want being here for you. Let me help you. I can, you know. I won't crumble under the weight of your sorrow. You trusted your secret with me, let me demonstrate you I'm worth that faith. "

"I have every faith in you. It's just.. I feel like if I don't know who I am without Dad. He's gone and I didn't even know how much his support mattered until now. I must learn to stand without him and I don't know how "

"We can learn together "

" I imagined our engagement like the happiest time of my life. So far, at least. I don't want turning it in anything else "

His expression is pained and Lana feels a bitch for insisting and causing him additional suffering. For making it about her, not about him and what he needs.

She can't think of a single thing to reply. "Okay. All right"

She nods, he squeezes her hands.

Fleetingly, Lana thinks she won't be able to talk openly to anybody about this. Lex was the only friend she had who wasn't more of a Clark's friend than hers. And she can't talk him about anything anymore.

---


	3. Chapter 3

**3**

No place is like home, Lex reasons, finding himself inside the same room of his mansion where death has almost taken him. He examines the furniture, caresses the walls, assesses freely the large, luxurious space like it was a ritual for resuming and restabilising his ownership of everything which surrounds him.

It's there he has one epiphany he has been dancing around since he awoke in his hospital bed, with a strange dream on his mind. Until today he has struggled to understand its meaning, but now the realization comes so simple, easy and completely unannounced.

Since he came to Smallville, Lex has fought with teeth and nails his so called destiny.

He doesn't believe in a fixated fate, but in the power of free will. For Lex history is just the play in motion of action and reaction, cause and consequence, even if sometimes they intertwined on so subtle level than even the most attentive observer could miss them.

So he has tried and tried hard, to be a good man. Although he has had so little experience with doing the right choices than the wrong ones were often confused with the former until it was too late. At first, he has thought Clark could teach him, to somehow rub on him some of his fairy dust and make him less of a Luthor and more of a real person.

Lex realizes now his quest was hopeless from the beginning: with Clark like role model he has never stood a chance. The younger man is always been just too decent, too genuine for not letting Lex came failing in every unwanted, spontaneous comparison. And there was not- there is not- nothing Lex accepts less favourably than being second best.

The more Clark is around, with his shining examples of goodness and candour, the more Lex realizes how much more familiar he is with his darkness. The more Lex has seen Clark being generous, the more he has been reminded of how necessary cruelty can be.

It's so clear now: Lex could still try to be a good man, the man Lana would marry even penniless, but because of their opposite backgrounds, he would never be as proficient at that as Clark.

At last, Lex Luthor is no victim, no sheep. He is not to exist without knowing excellence. Someday, he will conquer the world and he will force it to forget a man called Lionel Luthor even existed.

Probably his means won't be always politically-correct.

But he won't do anything of this because he surrenders to a mightier destiny. He will do because this is his active choice : exploiting his talent, reigning in Hell over serving in Heaven… this is what he knows how do right.

And if he can' t rise to meet the Clark's trust, he will deserve all of his distrust.

He can have failed to gain the Lionel's respect, but he will manage to feed his disappointment, his bitterness until they will grow into an intensely painful hatred.

As for Lana… Lex knows he loves her, not just because he's in love with her and his infatuation blinds him to her faults ( this was the way he loved Helen, and those who came before her) but because of how untarnished and yet broken, frail and yet strong she is. He loves everything about her and this is the only kind of love he doesn't know any defence from.

Lana Lang is a 'want', not a 'need'. Loving her is his choice, not his addiction : it is something he enjoys more than anything and the single most liberating emotion he ever felt . He won't cease.

Lex also knows love, like truth, is rarely pure and never simple.

He is not used to love, and this means he doesn't depend on the Lana 's capacity to return his feelings : her rejection can sting , but it would not end him.

Perhaps her heart will never long for him, but he will pursue her until he possesses her body, plagues her mind and haunts her soul.

Hours later, Lionel finds his son before the fireplace, sipping a strong flavoured licorice liquor. The older Luthor is about opening his mouth and commenting this particular pick, already prepared to turn the conversation upon how Lex should be resting or should not have left the Clinic at all. Something stops him, and Lionel doesn't immediately realize it is the expression of the Lex' s eyes while the youngest Luthor acknowledges him with an elegant nod.

That expression is new, blank but mocking at the same time; Lionel doesn't understand it all, but it sends chills along his spine.

From the first time she has seen him, there are two concepts Lana Lang has associated with Lex Luthor: control and sexuality. The memory is so clear, magnified by her ten-years-old impressionable imagination : his head gleaming above the pool's blue water, bent to a girl's tanned breasts, whose hands were gripping the tile and whose deep moans were echoing around loudly . Little Lana had squealed, her eyes wide and round like saucers still unable to stray from the couple, feeling horrified, scared yet oddly fascinated . Lex had lifted his shining bald head and turned toward the intruding sound' source: he had licked his lips, without a glimmer of self-consciousness or shame, and then he had smirked to her with a wet, red mouth, his piercing gaze swiftly changing from surprised to amused.

Today Lana doesn't considers Lex in a sexual way, at least not more than any other hetero woman does, but her first impression of him surfaces in her mind occasionally. This is the thing with first impressions, she thinks, they have a natural tendency to survive, specially if their nature is rather ambiguous .

Lana contemplates this to distract herself from changing her attire for the third time before visiting Lex. At last she vetoed a too revealing shirt and a too conservative pullover in favour of a cherry red camisole on cream-colored knee-length skirt.

She has read about his dismissal from the private Metropolis clinic on the Daily Planet, mildly irritated to know that Clhoe was informed firsthand and had not told to her .

Just deciding to visit him in Smallville has taken a lot of her nerve, although her mind was set on it from the beginning….she is been alone so at long, even when Clark was right there with her, and she had not realized until very recently the consistency of her connection to Lex .

In her life he is been the subtext, a subtle and weightless influence difficult to detect until everything went to hell and Lana realized he wasn't there and it was startling because she came to expect his presence, in spite of their changing circumstances.

She doesn't want to lose him as well.

Her perky roommate doesn't suspect about the Lana's disposition to make up with young resentful billionaires of dubious moral standards. Choe wouldn't understand it at all, and probably would reduce this to the necessity of protecting the Clark's secret. Lana is tired of it.

Whole Smallville thinks she is fragile, utterly depressed over her break-up with Clark - too many people want to shelter her and to take care of her like if she was some tender, flurry puppy needy of constant petting . Nobody seems to notice she has outgrown this stereotype and she would be ready to leave it completely behind if only everyone allowed it.

Of course, she is sad about Clark- but she is sadder when she looks around and notices about how bland her life is without him. In her nineteen years of life, she should have built something more than her relationship with Clark Kent… she should have a right to something more than the drama always gravitating around him.

Lex sees it .

Lana knocks on his door and her hands are not trembling.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

When Lana enters, Lex is standing before the fireplace, with a glass of dark liqueur in his hand and his back turned to her. For few seconds, she is unable to move, threatened by a sense of deja-vu so powerful to leave her knees weak: it's almost like if they are replaying the scene they have left unfinished last time she has seen him.

"I'm surprised to see you here"

He says to her, slowly twisting his neck to look at her. His voice is smooth but without warmth, in spite of the faint smile curling his lips.

"I was worried for you" – she replies, hating how lost she sounds. She didn't come here just to make an hesitant fool out of herself.

" I wanted to see how you were "  
She tries again, but the result isn't much more brilliant … at least she sounds firmer.

"I'm good- he comments, so offhandedly than she can almost guess he's in good mood- or at least as good it could be expected, for a man who has risked dying in the single most shameful moment of his lifetime. I owe you an apology, Lana. The way I've acted-"

"You weren't yourself"

Lana brushes him off, mostly because she's eager to put this accident behind them. To be sincere, she should admit how much the memory of the feverish glaze on the Lex' s pale eyes while he seized her and screamed at her still troubled her sleep… it was too similar to the gaze she has seen on the faces of too many of those meteor freaks.

Lana scoffs inwardly to herself: the mere idea of comparing _Lex _to those rabid creatures is laughable. The meteor shower can't have caused him any other damage than hair loss, can it? He is too cool and controlled under the most of circumstances to be anything less than normal… although she supposes that farfetched hypothesis would explain the intensity of his interest in mutants.

Lex raises an inquisitive eyebrow, his lopsided smirk vaguely bemused and more than a bit challenging, like if he knows something she ignores.

"I dislike considering alcohol as the master of my actions, even when they aren't honourable as I could wish."

He pauses, searching her expression for some kind of hidden signal she can't fathom. She wonders if he can read in her features how little eager she is to discuss that night and especially the subject which had flared the Lex' s temper so. Her engagement can be over, but there' s still a promise of secrecy between her and Clark, even if the prospective of lying to Lex again isn't inviting.

Lana is relieved when Lex resumes talking, absolving her from the necessity to make up the chance to make up an suitable excuse to skip his questions without insulting his intelligence.

"I won't ask you never again about whatever dark or light secret Clark has confessed to you that night. It's between you and him and I would have never intruded if my emotions hadn't clouded my judgement."

It's difficult for Lana finding an adequate answer to that. She wants believing Lex, but she can't. She knows how it feels to watch your trust in a friend disintegrating day by day, consumed by little white lies and a resentful suspicion to not be considered deserving of his trust.

She is been in the Lex' s shoes before, and even if his relationship with Clark is now nothing more than a pantomime of what it used to be, she knows this would just another reason for wanting more intensely the truth.   
Specially if Clark so desperately wants to keep it hidden.   
Specially _because_ Clark so desperately wants to keep it hidden.

Lana is been so often familiar with those same feelings than she can't hold them against Lex, but understanding doesn't fix anything. Yet, the idea of Lex lulling her into a false sense of safety to squeeze more information from her is more exciting than alarming.

She nods like if she trusts his promise, smiling against her better judgment, and it's almost flirtatious.

"I appreciate it"

As they move to sit before the fireplace, Lana notices Lex is deliberately sidestepping to be in a position to take in her figure without being obvious about it. She feels strangely touched by his subtlety.

"About the infamous engagement… I and Clark have annulled it."

"So I've heard "

He isn't even bothering to pretend any displeasure or concern over the news and although Lana holds a defensive façade before his demeanour, she secretly finds it a refreshing change.

"He needs some time to deal with his father's loss."

"By himself."

Lex nods –probably musing over how easily predictable Clark is in all his flannel and denim glory - and she finds herself once and again meeting his gaze squarely.  
The frigid heat in blue irises -almost like a reflection of fire on the surface of an iced lake- has always had the strange effect to force her skin to tighten in this barely perceptible and indefinable measure. Lana feels suddenly very lucky to experience the sensation again. To think he could have died scares her more deeply than she can say.

There's no more a reason to deny to herself or anyone else she has held Lex entrapped in her fantasies for just as long she has held Clark in her heart. Her mind associates the two of them by contrast, because there was something about Lex which both alarmed and ensnared her senses even while his friendship grounded her and challenged her. Just like there was something about Clark which both drew her in and awoke her diffidence, warning her that the distance between their worlds wouldn't ever been completely filled, it didn't matter whether he confided in her for his secrets or whether she could be unable of explaining this foreboding in words. 

Yes, she has desired Lex for just as long she has loved Clark and there's a new rush in finally facing this feeling, by not turning away when his stare becomes too intense.

"How you are dealing with it?"

"It has hurt a lot, but it was also like if some part of me wasn't surprised about it. I guess I got used to the idea by now… I feel almost guilty for not being as much broken about it than most of people seems to expect from me."  
Lex chuckles in front of the smirk she feels brave enough to dare. "Of course we can't say you hadn't enough practice with Clark's standard fashion to pull away to deal with his issues."

"Yeah- Lana shakes her head, unwilling to decide if his solidarity should being amusing her or aggravating her- I'm thinking it's been for the best. Maybe there's a reason if the love which has kept to pull us together so far isn't ever strong enough to stick. Doubts like those aren't a good basis for a marriage."

"Maybe. – Lex acknowledges her- I can't claim to be an expert of conjugal bliss. All my brides have tried murder me at some point or another."

Lana inclines her head pensively, taking a moment for appraising her companion by the light of fire. His complexion isn't any paler than it is ever been, his gaze is keen and attentive, his stance seems effortless relaxed: he looks healthy to her.

"Are you really okay? I mean, you look even too fine for someone who has so recently recovered from a coma but it's not like if you looked sick before passing out on me. Are your doctors concerned? "

The young billionaire leans back on his armchair, posing as the very picture of smug unconcerned-ness.

"Heart attacks don't send you in a coma, this is certain. They think it could be been the work of some toxin which could have acted on both my heart and my nervous system. Anything it was, it's gone now. "

Lex lies smoothly, without guilt. He might never tell her he doesn't as much as a sneeze since the Meteor Shower. It's a secret he has buried so deeply inside himself than sometimes even he be rely remembers he's just another meteor infected person. After all those years, to forget he might go mental as any guest of Level 33.1 is still the only way he can deal with his condition. Yet he favours thinking he's different, more in control of himself than other freaks; aren't his occasional bouts of fury always been transitory? hasn't he always managed to suppress his most murdering instincts? He has the control of his infection and genetic tests say his mutation is more stable than average.

By the time neurological effects of his condition will get more pronounced, the studies he finances in his Smallville labs will have paid off – Lex Luthor will accept nothing less- and he can deal in the meantime.

Thus, there's no need to let Lana suppose he's a danger to her.

"I'm very relived to hear it. –Lana says, taking courage to admit something she feels she must confess him- I missed you"

Something in the Lex' s face softens, but it has to be her imagination overworking because even his gaze seems to her like if it's brightening.

"Thanks for coming here. As you can see, there's not exactly a crowd of well wishers knocking down the door to be at my bedside. All this exclusive proximity to my father was beginning to grate on my nerves. "

"I can imagine"

Scrunching up her nose, Lana inwardly shuddered to the idea of having Lionel as sole contact to the outside world. _Poor Lex._

"You can save me. Have dinner with me in Metropolis tonight"

"Isn't a bit soon for going out to partying? You should take it slow."

It's really embarrassing - to not mention weird, since he's older - playing mother hen with Lex Luthor of all the people, but she can't help herself. She feels definitely sillier than ever when he chuckles in her face.

"I told you I'm fine. I doubt conversation with a good friend over spicy tuna rolls can do anything but benefit my health. I have a craving for Japanese cuisine it would be a shame satisfying in solitude."

"If you put it like that, it sounds as a n invitation difficult to refuse."

The Lex' s grin is sharkier than usual, yet it has a certain compelling quality. 

"So don't refuse it" 


End file.
